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April 16, 2008

Get Your Kremlinology Fix Here

Interesting speculation presented for your consideration, although I don’t know how much it is actually true: The KWP has been scrutinizing the ideologies of high-ranking officials of the party and officials at various organizations, and making new appointments and dismissals in an unprecedented scale. Playing the central role in this undertaking is Kim Johng Chol, the second son of Kim Jong Il and deputy chief of the all powerful Leadership Division of the party, who is said to have been...

Categories Japan & Korea/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
February 4, 2008

N. Korea Demands Japan Drop Abductions Issue

Does this sound like a nation that has renounced terrorism? North Korea-Japan relations will never improve if Japan continues to link their improvement with a bilateral dispute over North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese nationals, North Korea’s state-run media said Thursday. In a lengthy commentary, the Korean Central News Agency said that North Korea has not forgiven Japan for forcing many Korean women into sexual slavery and taking many Korean men to Japan during World War II, and that it...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/Terrorism (NK)
August 30, 2007

State Dept. Won’t Remove N. Korea from Terror List … Yet

The chief U.S. envoy at North Korean nuclear talks said Wednesday the United States will make sure close ally Japan is satisfied before lifting North Korea from a U.S. list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorists. Christopher Hill acknowledged the North has raised the terror-list removal repeatedly as a crucial part of a February nuclear disarmament accord. But, he said, the United States is “not going to cup our eyes and pretend a country is not a state sponsor of...

Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
June 19, 2007

The End of Chongryon?

I’d previously mentioned that  Chongryon, North Korea’s fifth column organization in Japan,  was forced to “sell” its de facto embassy in Tokyo.  As it turns out, the sale was  a  fraudulent scheme assisted by Japanese sympathizers, without consideration, to evade seizure by the authorities.  Japanese authorities have since voided the transaction, and, according to Yonhap, approved the seizure of the building. We also know more about why Chongryon is dying.  I was aware that some adverse tax judgments by the...

Categories Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/The Fifth Column
April 26, 2007

Anju Links for 26 April: Who’s Afraid of Victor Cha, and the Sexual Psychology of Military Parades

*   It has now been 13 days since April 13th, the day North Korea was supposed to have shut down the Yongbyon reactor, begun discussions on the full extent of its nuclear weapons and programs, invited in U.N. inspectors, and rejoined six-party talks (to include actually talking).  North Korea has (surprise!) broken every one of those agreements.  Victor Cha has since reportedly warned them that our patience is limited.  So in Pyongyang they ask …. *   Or Else,...

Categories Abductions/America/Japan & Korea/Refugees/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Terrorism (NK)/Terrorism/Iraq/WMD
April 25, 2007

North Korea’s Sponsorship of Terrorist Acts, 1996-2007

As I noted here, at the end of Update 4/24 to my North Korea Freedom Week post, the State Department is now rumored to be seriously considering removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This conflicts with signals State had sent earlier, and as I noted here, would probably trigger a rebellion by conservatives in Congress. With Japan’s Prime Minister set to visit Washington next week, unverified gossip holds that the Bush Administration will put pressure...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/WMD
April 13, 2007

Agony and Ecstasy in Wonsan

When I put up my post on Kim Jong Il’s palace northeast of Pyongyang, Curtis Melvin  commented and pasted  in a link to this Daily NK article, a guide to Kim Jong Il’s various palaces and residences.  (If you haven’t seen it yet, by the way, we’ve revealed an interesting answer to our pyramid mystery.) One passage in the article sounded like something I’d seen: Wonsan Chalet Where Kim Jong Il and his relatives hunt guillemots or ful seals, enjoy...

Categories Google Earth/Japan & Korea/Kim Jong Il/NK Military
March 31, 2007

Chosen Soren Sues Japanse Government for Malicious Prosecution!

[Update:   OK, I can top this.  North Korea calls South Korea “fascist” for blocking  pro-North Web sites.]   This deserves at least a footnote in the Funk & Wagnalls  History of Chutzpah.  Chosen Soren, a/k/a Chongryon, is a North Korean-controlled organization of ethnic Koreans in Japan.   A decade ago, Chosen Soren was a powerful and politically connected organization that poured millions into Kim Jong Il’s accounts through remittances, pachinko parlors, and a network of costly private schools teaching juche...

Categories Abductions/Japan & Korea
March 19, 2007

Anju Links for 3/19

*    Radio Megumi.  An international body has granted Japan  permission to increase broadcasts into North Korea.  The broadcasts will be directed  at a small audience:  its abducted citizens.  I tend to think that Japan would see them home again sooner if it broadcast words of dissent and subversion to the North Korean people. *   Short-Selling Appeasement.   Japan now stands alone in standing up to the North Koreans in Beijing:  not one Yen until you give us back...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Japan & Korea/Media Criticism/NK Economics/Terrorism/Iraq
March 17, 2007

‘Abduction’ Film Updates

This beautifully produced film, created by two National Geographic alumni, will air on BBC 4’s “Storyville” series  on March 22nd at 10:30 p.m.  I’d add that since absolutely nothing is open at that time in Britain, there’s no excuse not to watch. The film is also coming to DVD in May, with digitally remastered sound and subtitles in eight languages.  More at AbductionFilm.com.

Categories Abductions/Activism/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Japan & Korea/Terrorism (NK)
March 14, 2007

State: No quick removal of N. Korea from the terror list

I can imagine that the pressure from Japan has been intense, particularly in light of North Korea’s increasingly  brazen claims  about just what  the U.S. had agreed to lift, and when.  The North Koreans forced us to correct the record: North Korea will not be easily removed from the U.S. list of states that sponskor terrorism. U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that taking North Korea off the terrorism blacklist is a process that will require a lot of...

Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)
March 8, 2007

Peace in Our Time! Abductions Edition

I forecast severe tire damage along the road to removing North Korea from the terrorism-sponsor list:  HANOI–Japan and North Korea opened talks here Wednesday morning on normalizing bilateral relations, but the North Korean side canceled the afternoon session apparently as a way of refusing the Japanese request to discuss the abduction issue further, the chief Japanese delegate said. However, the meeting is scheduled to resume Thursday morning at the North Korean Embassy to discuss the abduction and normalization issues, Koichi...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 7, 2007

Hill: N. Korea Must Give Up Uranium Program

[Update:   This doesn’t  sound very “newly murky:”  “I have no doubt that North Korea has had a highly enriched uranium program,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said during a visit to Seoul. …. “We would expect that when North Korea makes its declaration of nuclear facilities that that would be one of the issues addressed in North Korea’s declaration,” he told a news conference.  Good, if we really have no doubts.  Straightforward interpretation is all that can...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan/Japan & Korea/WMD
February 28, 2007

I Wonder What They’ll Look Like on a SAM-2 Radar Screen

Plenty of armchair psyoppers, myself included,  have talked about ways to  fly leaflets and other items into North Korea, but here’s the most ambitious concept I’ve seen yet. A Japanese advocacy group said Tuesday it will use balloons to scatter flyers over North Korea, offering residents a US$10,000 cash reward for information on Japanese citizens kidnapped by the regime decades ago.  [Pravda] Yes, Pravda!   Not only does it still exist,  but now reports on capitalist conspiracies to  infitrate future...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Japan/Japan & Korea
January 16, 2007

Eum, Yang, and Korean Diplomatic Courtesy

A few days ago, Occidentalism posted this absolutely priceless flowchart that is too telling by half about how some Koreans tend to scapegoat their way through real problems. I suppose the temptation to pin blame on others is human nature; that temptation is at its greatest when a solution to the underlying problem seems beyond reach. Witness the finger-pointing that followed last October’s nuke test (and the notable absence of constructive proposals accompanying it). I shouldn’t miss this opportunity to...

Categories Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Diplomacy/History/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
January 9, 2007

Chosun Ilbo Draws ‘Line of Death!’

Let’s start by giving credit where it’s due.  The Chosun Ilbo wrote a great headline:  “An Offer Worth Throwing Into the East Sea.”  Nice.  They refer to President Roh Moo Hyun’s howler about renaming the Sea of Japan the “Sea of Peace.”  This is just the latest new low in Korea’s unhealthy obsession with things that do not matter, to the detriment of addressing things that matter. [T]he president, without careful scrutiny, blurted out an impromptu proposal about an issue...

Categories Japan & Korea/WTF?
January 8, 2007

Give Peace a Chance! Announcing the OFK Tokdo Renaming Contest!

With Roh Moo Hyun having proposed “Sea of Peace” to resolve the artificial nomenclature controversy between “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan,” and in the spirit of preventing what  would be the most needless conflict since the siege of Troy, it is time for us to take the next logical step and resolve the controversy between “Tokdo” and “Takeshima.”  Please join me in making history, and help  give peace a chance.     I open the bidding with a few suggestions:

Categories Humor/Satire/Japan & Korea